Friday, March 27, 2020

Coronavirus: More Signs of Hope From Italy

New York City has replaced northern Italy as the crucial crisis point of the international coronavirus pandemic, and that's actually good news for America.

In the past two days, there has been more good news from Italy.

Conditions are still very bad in Italy, where more than 80,000 cases have been reported and 3,600 coronavirus patients are currently hospitalized in intensive care, but the country apparently has passed peak of the pandemic.

If the coronavirus numbers there continue trending downward, Italy will have passed the worst of the crisis, and might be ready in another week or two to begin easing its strict lockdown policy.

Attempting to predict the course of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic is far beyond any statistical expertise I could claim, but about three weeks ago - when I still thought this virus was being over-hyped - a friend warned me, "No, it's serious. Pay attention to Italy." On March 4, Italy reported more than 500 new cases a day for the first time, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases to more than 3,000, and the numbers were escalating rapidly.

Within a week, the numbers had skyrocketed: Italy had 12,462 total cases on March 11, having added more than 2,000 newly identified cases in a single day.

Well, the U.S. first reported more than 500 new cases on March 9, nine days after Italy hit that benchmark, and it was March 18 that we first reported more than 2,000 new cases.

https://spectator.org/coronavirus-more-signs-of-hope-from-italy/

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